


a replica in the original walls

by valleyofmidnight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blow Jobs, Dissection, Dubious Consent, Jealousy, M/M, Masturbation, Mutilation, POV Sam Winchester, Pining, Pre-Season/Series 01, Religious Guilt, Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25674442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valleyofmidnight/pseuds/valleyofmidnight
Summary: Every now and again Sam snaps into the belief that he's dead and dying somewhere in an unmarked grave, and all of this twisting and growing hunger is his soul rotting in isolation of his body. He looks for something his soul could be attached to, something that would be keeping him here, but all he can find is Dean.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 24





	a replica in the original walls

It's hard to imagine not falling apart with a brother like Dean. So, in the crisp Indiana Winter, Sam does precisely that.

*

Dean belongs in the snow, Sam thinks. He belongs in places that make him smile, his lips all pink from the Winter air ( _but they would be warm if Sam pressed his fingers to them, they would remind him of spring_ ). Dean builds small snowmen with frozen hands, sticks them in the freezer, says he wants to carry them to places where it never gets below freezing, "Texas or Arizona, someplace like that." Sam feels like the snow, alien to such tenderness. 

Sam falls asleep every night composing long letters to the shades in Dean's skin. He imagines Dean's spit staining his fingers the same way strawberries do, Dean's skin peeling like butterfly wings if Sam ever placed his hand on his perfect cheek. He doesn't think it would hurt. He doesn't want to hurt Dean. 

Dean is so far and completely away from the stark horror in the background of their lives. He is light, and breath, and breathing; he is the breathtaking beauty of snow-covered meadows, muggy-white skies, muted leaves. He is everything a beautiful boy could be. He melts Sam into a pile of pure flesh and spirit. He burns everything else away. He is a singularity, a black hole you'd be grateful to if it swallowed you whole. He is the infection and the treatment. He is a whole world all by his beautiful-boy self.

Sam doesn't look at other boys this way, doesn't see light or life in their eyes. Boys at Sam's school, no matter what school he's at, are horrendously ugly. Their mouths move in terrible, grotesque ways, their eyes narrow and grimace, their jaws jut out like knives. Other boys are not beautiful like Dean is, so easily and so intrinsically beautiful.

So Sam shouldn't be surprised when Dean gets girls. Pretty, blonde, happy girls in sweaters and bubblegum lipstick. Girls that Dean smiles and winks at, girls that he meets up with in janitors' closets and behind bleachers. Sam shouldn't feel jealous either. He doesn't want girls. 

But, it's just a fact that Sam is better than all the girls Dean pulls, all the girls he holds the waists of. Sam, in his virgin-white attitude and complete admiration of Dean, would be way more exciting than all of those girls put together. Or, he could be, if he was actually the pure, fun to corrupt type. But Sam is already, at his basest core, corrupted. He already dreams about Dean's lips pressed to the curve of his ribs, picking shards of bone out of his teeth. He already imagines Dean being so hooked by him that he wouldn't bother to ask Sam if he wanted it-- He would just take, and take, until Sam was nothing but whatever concept Dean had of him. 

He dreams of Dean as a monster, which he isn't, but it makes things much simpler compared to what he is now (a nice, kind boy, a boy who is definitely only into it when a girl is enthusiastic and begging) ( _Sam isn't above begging_ ). Sam, in the rare moments he's alone and feels uninhibited enough, will crawl into one of the motel beds lie flat on his stomach and close his eyes, imagine Dean coming in and laying a hand on his hip or the back of his thigh, imagine Dean whispering things Sam couldn't hear or understand. Imagine Dean doing things Sam could never understand. 

And once Sam is aching, panting into a pillow that smells like hospital soap, he gets up, touches his face, licks the tears off his fingers, and tucks everything away. And when Dean comes back, either covered in dirt or someone else's perfume, Sam pretends he's a different person, different from the type to whisper his brother's name while he ruts against the mattress. 

Which makes him feel unreal, makes him feel split in two, and makes both halves of him feel like a complete fiction. Every now and again he snaps into the belief that he's dead and dying somewhere in an unmarked grave, and all of this twisting and growing hunger is his soul rotting in isolation of his body. He looks for something his soul could be attached to, something that would be keeping him here, but all he can find is Dean. Along with the green-eyed envy that plagues him whenever he sees Dean talking to someone else.

And it isn't that he wants to be the girls. He doesn't want to know Dean as the new kid in school who leaves behind sun-tinged memories and a Kansas/Def Leppard mixtape. Sam wants Dean exactly how he was, accepting what it meant to be brothers, to be twisted together and formed from the same cells. Brought home to the same house, then ripped out of it. An unalienable lifelong connection. Sam thinks a lot about the connection.

And he knows that, by modern and historical standards, incest is one of the highest taboos to exist. And even thinking about it makes him a horrible person-- thinking about it, in firm fact, makes him a sinner doomed to the lowest, coldest circle of Hell. But how is Sam supposed to apologize and repent for a bond he _didn't create_? He could never sit in a confessional and ask a priest to absolve him of sin when to do so is to deny his life. What does an appointed servant of God know about love? Or _want_? What more does God know about the bond of blood?

And really, according to myth, God already knows all the thoughts in Sam's head, regardless of the morality assigned to them. God's the one who made him. Why should Sam be the one to feel shame for the dirt and ache that's been placed inside him? God should be the one shameful of what _He_ made. 

Or, Sam wants to believe that, wants to believe that his desire and longing is the product of whatever Created him: not his problem, not his fault. But at night, when the air's still, and Dean's asleep, the smallest parts of Sam's mind wish only for redemption, revelation, absolution. He wants it to all click into place, made easy to turn around and forget that crashing envy towards the girls Dean brought around. He wants to stop imagining Dean as a monster taking what he'd like. He wants to be able to hide this part of himself from Dean forever. He wants the horrible, raging bitterness to go away.

*

Turns out, Sam is not a very good liar. Dean, with all the careful movement of a predator stalking prey, cocks his head, looks at Sam with a half-formed question on his mind. Sam can feel it before he looks up and sees Dean sitting on the opposite side of the booth, their dad off in the bathroom, or smoking a cigarette outside today's All-American Diner, Sam hadn't really kept track of where he went. But he kept track of Dean and all his small movements, especially the ones he only saw on the edges of his vision. 

Sam wanted to prompt him, ask him what the hell he was looking at, but that would inevitably open a whole can of worms. And their dad would be back soon enough, and Sam did not have the energy to calm Dean down if he got to the ( _disgusting_ ) heart of the issue, and he would start begging strangers to disembowel him if their dad walked in on a conversation about Sam's incestuous inclinations (and, ultimately, about the state of his soul). 

So, Sam looks down at his cheap silverware, sticks his hands between his thighs, and sits stock-still. Dean apparently can't find the right way to ask the question on his mind, and quickly runs out of time as their dad slides back in the booth next to him ( _smelling like smoke, go figure_ ). He looks between them, a curious expression of his own passing over his face, quickly slipping away as he picks up a menu. 

*

The next time they're alone, Dean hovers around Sam like a buzzard, peering down his shoulder, hands in his pockets, trying to sniff out whatever Sam's problem is. _For one, I think about you raping me_ , Sam considers telling him, _and I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy it, which I don't think is how that works_. He feels hate and stomach bile rise higher in his throat the closer Dean keeps around him, the more glances he sends his way (and they _are_ the most beautiful thing Sam has ever seen, despite the reaction they give him). And he can't stop thinking of the girls who _know_ Dean, who know the Dean trying to win them over, the Dean bragging about his car, taking them out for dinner. Sam wants to ram his head into the corner of the desk.

Finally, on his endeavor to give Sam a frustration-induced aneurysm, Dean says, hunched over him, "Something's up with you." 

To which Sam, completely fucking _exhausted_ , huffs and replies, "You won't leave me the hell alone."

Dean pauses, then takes a step back, his expression falling, and Sam's heart _sinks_. He can't even commit to being a dick. Dean is a teacup and Sam feels like a massive fucking hammer. He quickly sighs and apologizes, shaking his head, and tries to focus back on his studying. This school isn't particularly hard, Sam doesn't feel super behind and all his teachers give him an easy time 'cause everyone's pretty sure his dad is, like, a CIA spy or something, so--

"You can tell me what's actually bothering you, y'know, you don't have to pull that crap."

"Dean, I just wanna study, alright? Is that allowed?" then (since it didn't even work the first time), "Do you have to watch over me all the damn time?" He turns and looks at Dean straight in the eye, and he just can't fucking help smashing him to pieces, "Bet Dad's making you watch me. Scared your little _freak_ brother is gonna burn down the building? Worried your freak brother is gonna wind up skinning cats behind the shitty motel?"

He had been building up like a pressure cooker for _weeks_ , seeing Dean with the next piece of high school arm candy, seeing Dean look fucking _gorgeous_ , wrapping his arm around Sam's shoulders or laying his hand on his leg like it didn't _affect_ him. Like it meant _nothing_. Because to Dean, it didn't. Which is _fine_ , and would've been perfectly fine if Dean wasn't in his ear being the most _annoying_ fucking person alive.

Dean narrows his eyes and for a second he looks like every ugly, angry boy Sam has ever seen. Sam would've been horrified, but in this moment, he feels more like he's being split from his own skin, more like he's being lifted and carried on Dean's expression, reassured that even someone as inherently beautiful as Dean could slip and let show their underbelly, which is not golden and pure but seedy and dark just like Sam. Dean could be _ugly_. Even for just a moment. 

"No, I'm not fucking scared of you, _dumbass_. Is that what you think?" And he's immediately back to being the prettiest thing in any room, he's back to being the sort of thing Sam could cut himself on.

"Scared isn't the right word," Sam mumbles, turning back to sit front in his chair, and he knows that wouldn't be enough to make Dean leave him alone, but at least he wouldn't have to _look at him_.

And, as expected, it just makes Dean lower his voice and prod farther. "What's the right word, then?" Dean asks, somewhat mocking. Sam lets the thought of ripping his head off cross his mind. Sam's stomach and throat are _full_ of bile by this point, his skin threatening to curdle and rot right in front of Dean. His head is aching, all of his bones on the verge of breaking. He can rationalize tearing Dean apart. 

"Disgusted," he says, very clearly, full of weight he couldn't look at. 

Dean can't seem to process the thought. It's what finally shatters him. He sits on the bed, stares at Sam so intently he can feel it even though his back is turned. "Wh-- Why in the world would I be disgusted with you, Sammy?"

And Sam thinks about telling him. He thinks about spitting out all his thoughts like poison darts. But he can't. He can't mesh these two realities with so little grace, so little patience. He can't mesh these two realities at all. They simply don't exist in unity. 

Dean pulls in a breath, slow and deliberate. Sam hears him rise to his feet, prepares for Dean to touch him ( _his neck, his shoulder, his waist)_ but Dean walks out of the room. Sam hears the door shut a few moments later. Everything inside him falls down to the floor, his throat, his heart, his stomach. He turns back to his schoolwork, but he finds himself hard-pressed to give a shit about it. He huffs and lays his head on the desk, all of his nerves fried, all the skin of his lungs wrinkled and decaying right in his chest. Time itself pulls thin around him, stretches in long, honey-thick waves.

The door opens, and in a flash of panic, Sam assumes it's his dad, ready to yell at Sam for yelling at Dean. He jerks upward, smooths his shirt, adjusts the papers on the desk, and picks up a pencil, looking as busy as he could. Dean's voice is the next thing he hears. Along with the rustle of a paper bag. 

"This place didn't have pie," Dean says, halfway under his breath, "But they did have cheesecake, and well, it's not the same, but it's fine."

Sam blinks. Then blinks again. Dean lays a foil-wrapped hamburger on the desk, right next to Sam's arm, his fingers brushing against Sam's jacket as he pulls back to reach back into the bag. 

"Wh-- Dean, I don't--"

"It's fine, Sammy. Seriously." He places a small plastic container down, lays a disposable fork on top of it, "Heaven knows I've had plenty of thoughts like that of myself, y'know. Hard to breathe around all this stuff without asking yourself how much of a monster you are yourself."

Which frustrates Sam all over again. He isn't wondering, fumbling with the idea-- It's clear from every thought he's unable to say out loud that Sam's worthy of disgust. Unclean, unholy.

"Everyone's a little fucked up, Sam, promise."

He just wishes Dean would stop saying his name ( _god, please_ ). He wishes he would stop trying to be supportive ( _he shouldn't be supportive of this_ ). But Sam's thinking it all the same-- Dean wanting to pull Sam apart on the sheets, leave burning marks all over him (but never in places anyone could see). He thinks about what exactly Dean _wants_. He can't form a single thought. 

Dean sits on the bed, and Sam watches him unwrap his food, and he looks _normal_. He looks how he always does. Maybe a bit more fragile. Maybe a little shaken, but he looks like _Dean_ how Sam knows him. And his entire mind is screaming at him, playing images of Dean on top of him, pushing forward no matter the sounds and pleads Sam makes. He wants to bash his own skull in (l _et the maggots feed on him at this point, let the dirt swallow him, take the place of his veins and heart_ ). 

"What're you looking at, dumbass, you have your own," Dean says, mouth full. And if Sam thought about shoving his tongue into Dean's mouth just like that, he would never admit it. 

*

Dean must think he's _real_ slick, must think Sam is dead asleep with all the fucking noise he's making. In the still valley of midnight, Dean is _gasping, sighing, whispering_. And Sam can't hear what he's saying, but he can hear _enough_. And Sam is fucking _falling apart_. Sam has only seen Dean in any sort of compromising way on accident (rushed into the bathroom without knocking, caught him flipping the channel to porn), but _this_ \-- This threatens to rip Sam from his firmest foundations. 

So, of course, he listens _very_ intently. 

He slips his hand under his own covers, quickly and quietly, full of both caution and pure _thrill_. It's a perfectly gift-wrapped moment, one that can easily be interpreted as a sign if Sam wants to do so. He doesn't want to think about it. He wants to instead delve into the carnal Dyonisian wave that's threatening to wash over him. He closes his eyes, and all that exists ( _all that matters_ ) is Dean's voice, unlike anything Sam has ever heard, floating through the room. 

He bites down on his lip, his head tilting back of its own accord, and he can imagine Dean right in his ear ( _his hand, his breath, his body_ ), can imagine they're in perfect union. A sound breaks from Sam's mouth He can't catch himself before he tumbles wholly over the edge, feeling nothing under him, nothing above him, only really being aware of his throat and his blood. 

It's deathly silent in the moments after. 

Dean whispers Sam's name like he's not sure if Sam is alive. Sam stays completely still, his eyes shut, his skin shimmering on the thinnest level. Surely, his thoughts, such clear images, have somehow beamed into projections and Dean now knows everything he's thinking. He knows every fantasy and urge lying beneath his skull. 

Sam hears a rustle of blankets, turns and sees Dean's back facing him. And the moment's over. Whatever shared projection they had is broken. Sam goes back to thinking about tearing Dean apart (c _arefully, methodically, in ways that would feed headlines and true crime authors_ ). 

It's easier, he finds, than picturing Dean on top of him. Homicide is almost understandable, deeply human, based on primal feelings of anger that everyone can, on some level, understand. Incest-- Sam can't think about _wanting Dean_. It's a whole different level of unclean. 

But he looks at Dean, the way his body stands against the backdrop of the motel, not much more than a shadow in the dark, and it doesn't feel much different from stumbling across his porn magazines. Sam's revulsion is all secondary. 

A moment passes before Sam pulls the covers off himself, and as carefully and quietly as possible, he walks over to Dean's bed. His shirt's sticking to his stomach ( _and he should've washed his hands or something_ ), but it doesn't matter, it won't matter-- Sam crawls under Dean's covers.

And it's an acceptance, of sorts, as accepting as he can be with his brain and stomach eating themselves whole with worry, with the nagging knowledge that Sam won't be able to defend himself on judgment day.

Dean has not fallen asleep. He rolls onto his back with some level of hesitance, looking at Sam with the same pity-laden question on his face he had earlier, along with a new, dawning realization. It's not very refreshing, and Sam still doesn't care to answer any of it. 

He moves swiftly on top of Dean, holds his face, and kisses him recklessly. Sam swears he can taste something other than spit in Dean's mouth, but his brain is so suddenly and completely soaked in adrenaline and thoughts of _finally_ , god, _finally_. 

He thinks of strawberries, he thinks of stains. He thinks of sin and how, as a religious concept, a separation from God, it doesn't mean much to him, but as a permanent mark, a stain on the animated soul, he understood. 

But he can't just stop after feeling Dean under him, feeling him sigh into his mouth, so he presses a shaky kiss to Dean's throat, above his Adam's apple, then below. Flashes from every fantasy he's ever had, every intrusive thought to every welcome dream, passes through Sam's head, his mouth somewhere on Dean's chest, somewhere on his stomach (and he feels like he _knows his way around_ , knows where to press his tongue, where to lap at the _filth_ Dean had left himself covered in). He can imagine it as blood, can imagine it as something he already knows ( _he has the same blood pumping in his veins_ ). 

And when his mouth is around Dean, moving clumsily, he can imagine it as a dismemberment. Violence born from a family of violent business, born from a neglectful and murderous father. If they ever find Dean in a ditch, covered in blood and dirt, they will have the perfect story to tell about why Sam did it. If they ever find Sam strung up from a motel ceiling fan, drunk off stolen beer, they will have the perfect story to tell. 

Blood fills his stomach, covers his hands (a _nd it doesn't smell like blood, but that's fine_ ), and Sam is echoing Dean, panting. He can imagine that this is just another vivid fantasy and not something he would ever do. 

He falls asleep on Dean's chest, which becomes the only real thing. He hears Dean's heartbeat calm down and become a steady rhythm. He watches the sun rise through the plastic blinds. He doesn't recognize the world around him. 

*

If Sam _were_ to kill Dean, he would have plenty of opportunity. He thinks about the worst cases he knows. Decapitation, mutilation, cannibalism, necrophilia. He's sure he would never have the guts to do it ( _fantasy and action are two very different and distinct categories_ , but Dean would look pretty wrapped in his own blood, and the more Sam thinks about it, the clearer the visions of beauty get. 

One scenario sticks with him. Dean is asleep, and Sam crawls into his bed just like before. He gets his hands around Dean's neck, able to feel his teenaged-stubble, seemingly older than Sam would ever be. Dean's eyes fling open, but he doesn't fight back ( _he would probably win that fight_ ), he just looks up at Sam, understanding completely what's happening. He understands that there's just no other way for Sam to get over him ( _because he is beautiful_ , and Sam could never have him). 

The light in Dean's eyes dim but don't go out completely, he's aware of everything Sam does to him. He understands as he feels the knife dig into his chest under his fifth rib, ideally into his thoracic spine. He becomes unable to breathe, unable to control his lungs as they fill with blood and then collapse. But the knife, whatever knife Sam winds up using, is probably not long enough for that. It would be a bit messier, a bit uglier, a bit more of a fight from Dean-- But that's what made the image of Dean looking up at him, fully understanding and fully forgiving, so impossible to forget. 

And he'll never do it. But there's something comforting in indulging the thoughts, in letting himself dip his toes in, letting himself imagine the way Dean would choke on his blood ( _the way it would stain his lips like strawberries_ ). He lays in the empty room ( _Dean off somewhere with someone beautiful, probably_ ) and stares at the dinged up, rotting wall of this month's motel room. And he thinks about Dean with his hands and feet cut off, on his knees, serving Sam for once. 

And if it's one of the best orgasms he's ever had, he would never say so.

When Dean comes home, buzzed and swaying like there's a Sinatra song stuck in his head, Sam knows he will never be capable of hurting him. There will never be a real chance to have complete control or possession of Dean because every instinct Sam has when he's around is of servitude, worship. Dean is everything a beautiful boy ever could be, and Sam's willing to offer himself as a sacrificial lamb at his feet.

Dean's in Sam's bed, pulling at his shirt, pulling him close, and he's pressing a drunk-sweet kiss to Sam's cheek. He can make it look like an accident, he knows he could, but he doesn't feel the fire in his chest after getting off, the hunger-sick compulsion to hurt him. So he slips his hands into Dean's hair and he lets him suck a stupid mark onto his neck, and he lets Dean run his hands up under his shirt, and he knows what he's doing, even if he's whispering half-nonsense in Sam's ear. 

For a small moment, Sam doesn't feel like a brother, but like a boyfriend catching their partner cheating. The perfume wafts unwillingly into his nose, and Dean kisses his cheek though that makes it better.

And then it comes crashing in that Sam is, in fact, Dean's brother, and he has no place to get jealous, and if this was an after-school special about brotherly love on a sitcom, Dean would sit him down and reassure him. Instead, his hand is between Sam's legs. It's the first time Dean had really instigated anything, unless you count masturbating a bed over ( _can't count that_ ), and it made him feel _wanted_ , not just tolerated, not just good enough in the moment, but like Dean had _been_ wanting him-- And all it took was alcohol (and a woman). Which makes Sam feel sick. He ignores it. 

*

Their dad somehow never finds out, even though Sam feels like it's so obvious and John typically picks up on everything. He's made a career in seeing the signs normal people refuse to see. Sam figures this is the exception that proves the rule. And it makes Dean bolder, which Sam can't complain about. Dean starts knocking his foot against Sam's ankle under the table, starts enjoying making Sam blush (which is often), starts smiling like a hunter should. Sam doesn't think too hard about being prey. 

Sam starts noticing the way strangers move around their spine, the way it curves, runs up people's necks. He starts staring at a new piece of the skeleton in his biology class every day, thinking about how it moves, how it could be disconnected. When fetal pig dissection rolls around, Sam does plenty more than dissect. He pulls the dead pig apart with focus and ease, each joint giving way to a new separation, every organ an organism of its own. He takes it home, every piece accounted for and bundled in plastic. He sticks it in the fridge neither he nor Dean use and when Dean is out rubbing someone else's perfume on his neck, Sam pulls it out and puts the pig back together on the patchy carpet. 

He almost expects the pig, now reconnected, to spring up and snort at him. Of course, what's dead stays that way, and rotting can only be slowed, never prevented. So Sam takes it all apart again, buries each piece in its own grave behind the motel where the flowers are starting to bloom despite the air still being so cold. Sam finds more relation in the dead pig parts than the struggling flowers. All of his parts are buried in Dean. He's a gutless boy, his insides sitting in Dean's stomach. 

Thinking about it that way only makes Sam want to slice him open, stuff Dean's stomach down his throat, string his guts up like Christmas lights. He won't. But thinking about it can't do any harm.

Dean comes home perfectly sober.

*

Dean hands Sam the hunting knife, a Buck 119, heavy steel, polished wooden handle. Dean's spent more time scrubbing this thing clean than he does sleeping. Sam holds it with a certain reverence as Dean goes on about how they make these things, what kinda people use them, what kinda animals you can skin with them-- And it's the image of a buck bleeding out that catches Sam. It's the way it reminds him of pulling apart that pig. He's sure that if he separates Dean from the holiness that resides in his substance, sees it more as a quality than a defining characteristic, then Dean is just a stunning deer. Sam could appreciate his beauty and gut him at the same time. 

He looks over at Dean, now talking about werewolves, leaning back on his elbows against the dewy grass. The field they were in is empty, can't see it from the road. And Sam feels nothing but hunger. He looks over his shoulder and Dean stops talking, asks if something's wrong. They hold eye contact for a long moment, Sam doing everything to give nothing away. He looks down into his lap, shy, blushing, and he can see the way it makes Dean's lips wrap around his teeth in a grin, can see the way Dean repositions himself ever so slightly. 

"There's no one around, Sammy. What're you thinking about?"

And instead of it being Dean taking control, instead of Sam imagining Dean on top of him, pulling him apart-- he thinks of laying out all of Dean's pieces. He shakes his head. "Nothin'."

Dean breathes in, sits up and leans forward. The look in his eye is something pitiful, something begging. He pulls Sam into a kiss, sweet and open, like he’s trying to figure Sam out from the way his lips move. Sam thinks about this being their last kiss. He shoves the knife forward into Dean's stomach. 

Dean almost can't believe it, expected to die on a hunt, by the hands of a monster. _Well, he got one thing right_. 

Sam twists the handle, pushes it across the line of Dean's belly _like a fish, no different than a fish_. Strawberry blood _pours_ out of him in waves _to the beat of his heart_ , and Sam presses his hand against the wound, trying to close it up but blood is slipping through fingers, and _this is too much blood to ever put back into a body_. Dean grips Sam's shirt with an unstained hand, presses his face into the crook of Sam's neck, eyes closed, his breathing deeply unsteady. He whispers. 

He's gone the next moment. Sam lays him down on the grass, ignores the blood, and puts his head on Dean's chest, intertwines their hands. The sky is clear and the sun is starting to go down-- The sky is aflame with the shades. Strawberry pink melting into the warmest peach-orange. The trees holding the colors like paint brushes. He recognizes.

He closes his eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic, uh, took me a while, not because of the graphic content or anything but because i'm trying this very novel thing called.... not pushing myself into a burnout. hope this fic makes up for how long it took to get out, lol. i watched a whole season of mindhunter while writing it <3
> 
> as always, please do leave comments and kudos, i'm deeply appreciative of the people who take time out of their days to read (and enjoy) the things i write, since i know they get a bit, er, wild. <3


End file.
